36 
NATURE 
[May 8, 1902 
Crompton, and Messrs. S. Z. de Ferranti, R. Hammond, 
H. Hirst, J. E. Kingsbury, W. L. Madgen, W. M. 
Mordey, R. P. Sellon, A. Siemens, C. P. Sparks, 
j. Swinburne and A. A. Campbell Swinton, | This 
committee, after holding eleven meetings and collecting 
a quantity of evidence, has just published its report, 
which has been adopted by the council of the Institution. 
As the subject is one of vital importance, not only to 
the electrical profession, but to the whole nation, it will 
be of interest to consider this report in some detail. 
By their first resolution the committee state that “the 
development of electrical science in the United Kingdom 
is in a backward condition as compared with other 
countries, in respect of practical application to the indus- 
trial and social requirements of the nation.” As a case 
illustrating this contention, the American equipment of 
the Central London Railway will occur to everyone ; the 
undisputed competition between Messrs. Ganz and Co. 
and the Westinghouse Conipany, two foreign firms, 
for the electrical equipment of the Metropolitan and 
District Railways affords a second illustration. The 
South Wales distribution scheme is a third case in 
point, for it will be seen from the note to which we have 
referred already that though the engines are to be of 
English make, the electrical generators are to be supplied 
from abroad. 
The resolutions which follow attribute the backward- 
ness largely to “the restrictive character of the legis- 
lation governing the initiation and development of electric 
power and traction undertakings, and the powers of 
obstruction granted to local authorities,’ and point out 
that “local boundaries have usually no reference what- 
- ever to the needs of the community in regard to electric 
supply and traction,” and that the development of these 
undertakings offers the most favourable means of re- 
lieving congested centres. The economic importance of 
the question is thus clearly insisted upon by the com- 
mittee. As regards the power of local authorities, it is 
recommended that the Electric Lighting Acts 1882-8 
and the Tramways Act 1870 should be amended in so 
far as they enable local authorities to veto or delay 
electrical undertakings of proved public utility. A 
similar recommendation was made by a joint committee 
of the two Houses of Parliament in 1898, but nothing 
has been done so far to give effect thereto. 
In addition, it is pointed out that the technical staffs 
of the Government departments are inadequate for 
present needs, and finally the committee recommends 
that a deputation from the Institution of Electrical 
Engineers should wait on the Prime Minister to urge 
the removal of the present disabilities and restrictions. 
It is to be hoped that this final resolution will take effect 
and will produce the desired result. It is not to be sup- 
posed that the legislative difficulty is the only one which 
has hampered electrical development in England, but 
it is unquestionably one of the greatest. As more than 
one speaker pointed out in the discussion on Mr. 
Madgen’s paper, we have to cope with the superior 
organisation of foreign manufactories, due to the recog- 
nition of the high value of scientific training and the 
closer assimilation of theory and practice. In the indus- 
trial war which we have to carry on it is, as Prof. S. P. 
Thompson said, “brains really against which we have 
to fight.” And we have to meet something more than 
this, namely, the experience which foreign manufacturers 
have gained in constructing electrical machinery, not for 
their own requirements merely, but for ours also. If we 
are to make up our leeway and be successful in this 
struggle, it is essential that we should not be hampered 
by out-of-date legislation. Reform may be necessary in 
other directions as well, but that does not lessen the need 
for reform in this direction. Anything that can be done 
to make our path more easy should be done without 
NO. 1697, VOL. 66] 
delay, lest we find, when it is accomplished, that we are 
too late. To do what is in their power for the further- 
ance of this object is the interest, not only of electrical 
engineers, but of all who do not desire to see our com- 
mercial supremacy pass to other countries. 
DECORATIVE PLANTS FOR GARDENS 
N the second volume of the fifth series of the A¢tz 
del Reale Istituto @incoraggiamento di Napoli (1901), 
Dr. Nicola Terraciano has an elaborate paper on the 
wild plants of Italy that are most suitable for decorative 
purposes in gardens. Such indications are greatly 
needed in many countries: besides Italy. At this season 
of the year, if the botanist or the flower-lover pays a visit 
to a garden, or particularly to a flower-show, he will see 
hundreds of daffodils, for instance, If by chance he visits 
another locality he will still see hundreds of daffodils of 
the same kind. They are very beautiful, and to the 
student of evolution most interesting and most worthy of 
study. But after a time they get somewhat monotonous, 
and the visitor begins to long for a change. These 
daffodils of which we have been speaking may be re- 
ferred to some two or three,or at most half a dozen, 
species only, but if we turn to the memoir before us we 
find some twenty species enumerated, and we wonder 
why more of them are not pressed into the service. 
Again, if we look to the “schedules” of the flower- 
shows at the Cape of Good Hope, or of any of our 
Australian colonies, we find slavish imitations of 
European procedures—chrysanthemums galore in their 
season, daffodils, roses and the like, just as in an Eng- 
lish exhibition—but the representatives of the local floras 
are not represented. And yet the Cape flora and the 
West Australian flora are probably much richer in plants 
suitable for cultivation than those of any similar areas 
in the world. What a disappointment to the botanist 
to visit a flower-show in South Africa or Australia and 
find little or nothing but chrysanthemums when he is 
eager to see the beauties of the Cape Peninsula and of 
the Swan River. 
Dr. Terraciano evidently holds the same views, for he 
puts before us a long list of the plants of Italy more or 
less suitable for garden decoration. He points out how 
great are the resources of the Italian peninsula, stretch- 
ing as it does from Alpine almost to sub-tropical regions, 
with a long coast-line, with marshes, heaths, forests and 
endless diversity of soil, and situation clothed with a 
corresponding diversity of vegetation. 
It is no wonder, then, that his list isa long one. There 
are fourteen species of tulips, for instance. Some of the 
plants might perhaps have been omitted, such as some 
of the eight species of Juncus. To the botanist pure 
and simple mere beauty is, of course, subordinated to 
other considerations. We remember a botanist’s garden 
at Reigate many years since which was full of interest- 
ing things, but when the garden changed hands, the new 
proprietor is recorded to have said, when giving orders 
for their destruction, that he “must draw the line at 
docks” ! 
Dr. Terraciano indicates the soils most suitable for the 
cultivation of particular plants, and recommends for 
many of them a compost of peat, fragments of chestnut 
wood and leaf-mould. 
Considering what a favourable nidus this would in our 
damp climate form for fungus spawn, we should hesitate 
to employ it on a large scale. Cultivation in sphagnum 
moss we first saw in Italy many years ago, and succeeded 
in growing sarracenias in it in a London suburb for a 
time. 
1 “Te piante della flora italiana pitt acconce all ornamento dei giardini,” 
